As Conner and I climb the training pyramid, we stumble on the step called "impulsion."
The good ol’ Principles of Riding, the German training bible, calls impulsion ‘schwung’ and defines it as "the transmission of the energetic impulse created by the hind legs into the forward movement of the entire horse." Maryal Barnett defines it as "surging forward in the moment of suspension." I think of it as creating sweaty foam between the horse’s back legs.
My score sheets read like a thesaurus of impulsion comments. I have seen "horse lacks impulsion," "strides need to cover more ground," and, my personal favorite, "longer, not faster." I dreamed of a show without the nasty "I" word underlined in the collective remarks.
I was sure some horses were just born with impulsion. Then the German book set me straight. After a paragraph-long lecture proclaiming horses born with show-y, long gaits and rigid backs are not examples of proper impulsion, it says, "schwung is always a result of efficient training."
Ok, so now Conner lacks efficient training as well as impulsion. Boy, I was beginning to feel really good about myself now.
I heard of a world-champion saddle bred trainer who claimed she did her best training in her rocking chair at the end of the day. That was when she rehashed her rides to see what went right, what went wrong and what could be improved.
I have similar ritual, except with a rake and wheelbarrow.
As I mucked I pondered. A horse that has impulsion is in front of the rider’s leg. So Conner needs to be in front of my leg.
I headed to the arena determined to be an "efficient trainer" and get my little Arab in front of my leg. I put my leg on, and he meandered forward. So I backed my leg up with the whip.
He headed off in his best imitation of a hackney pony. I knew this wasn’t right, so I tried again.
He flipped his tail, then did his hackney imitation again.
On trial three he made it clear what he thought -- he bucked. Hard.
Not feeling particularly "efficient," I headed out to muck stalls and think this through some more.
"Well," I thought, "Let’s use transitions to get him in front of my leg."
So we did something like 1,000 transitions. For days and days.
Conner caught on to this idea pretty quick. He figured if he was going to do a downward transition in a few strides anyway, what’s the hurry? He would jump forward in the first stride (have to get away from the killer leg/whip thing) then settle into the western-pleasure version of the gait and wait for his downward.
Somehow I didn’t think this was "efficient training" either.
Time for more mucking and thinking.
Maybe he just isn’t strong enough, I though.
I took to the hills.
We trotted up, around and over the 160 acres of Appalachia known as Garland Farms. I kept him moving forward. No slacking for us. We were being "efficient."
After a few weeks of this I headed into the ring to test my theory.
Conner showed me proudly how strong his quick trot was getting.
Good thing there is always more mucking to do.
As I was having another one of my muck-and-train sessions I got to thinking about the training pyramid. Each tier works as a prerequisite for the next tier. Maybe our problem wasn’t impulsion at all. Time to check the foundation.
Before we started working on "behind the leg" his rhythm wasn’t a problem. He could even quick-trot with the regularity of a metronome.
I decided Conner’s relaxation was great when he entered the ring, let out a big sigh, and hung his neck forward and down. Definitely no tension there.
So next was suppleness. He definitely flexed both directions. The leg yields were relatively even both ways in the walk and trot. Trot was consistent right to left and canter was becoming more consistent. Sounded like suppleness to me.
Both reins had a fairly even weight, and a half-halt brought him into a steadier connection. Contact seemed okay.
So impulsion should be fine too.
But it wasn’t.
I went to the walk to give myself time to think. I put Conner in a serpentine-leg yield pattern Gina had me working on with the young horses. I knew it well enough that I could keep him busy while I tried to see what I was missing.
We 10 meter half-circled and leg-yielded from quarter-line to quarter-line (he was parallel enough to the short sides in his leg yields to make even Gina happy) all the way from A to C and back again, and I still had no solution. So I put him back in the trot.
And he surged forward in the moment of suspension.
I very carefully put my leg on. He surged further forward.
And it only took a few minutes to get the needed amount of suppleness. That’s "efficient" in my book. Especially compared to the 2 1/2 years we’d been looking for that elusive impulsion.
We rounded some circles, snaked some serpentines, and when the surge-y feeling left we did some very-crossy leg yields in both directions, then surged forward again.
At the end of our final stretch Conner turned his head to me as if to say "that’s suppleness, gal."
After I toweled the sweat off his neck, chest and between his back legs, I grabbed the wheelbarrow and fork.
I decided that it all made sense after all. Using more force or repetitions or fitness to get a horse in front of the leg just doesn’t work. In front of the leg is a result of proper impulsion, not the other way around.
Horses that don’t respond correctly to the driving aids either don’t know the correct response or are aren’t able to give you a correct response. In Conner’s case my definition of supple wasn’t enough to be a building block for impulsion. When I stumbled onto his definition of suppleness he was more than willing to give me impulsion as a bonus.
Now we get to tackle straightness ....
Til next month, Ange